Cyberwellness Program

Introduction to a Cyberwellness Framework for educators.

Cyberwellness among the youth is a major concern in society today with the emergence of Internet related crimes such as rape, theft, piracy, etc.. Many educators and parents are not aware about the approach to educating and protecting their young from these threats.

This Cyberwellness Framework is developed by Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) in Singapore. It focuses on educators and parents in the education of the threats and opportunities of the Internet. Youths are sub-categorized into groups so each can be tackled in the most effective manner. Furthermore, the suggested content is designed in an upward spiral so that the content is built on the previous. At the same time, the framework is also modular – educators can choose to select and customize the items that are most suitable to their situation.

The Asian approach to the framework is consistent to the values of the people in the region. Educational psychology and technology pedagogies are included to aid teachers in delivering the lessons – be they in classrooms or e-learning based. Finally, a simple Failure Mode Effect Analysis was performed to anticipate possible failures and actions to prevent it.

Objective

To provide a modular cyberethics/cyberwellness framework which educators and parents can easily adapt.

Instructional approaches for educators

1. Instructional analysis

Specific task analysis could be conducted to identify the specific process (or processes) that learners must follow to achieve ideal performance.

The tasks come in three categories:

Physical (psycho-motor) tasks, are tasks performed by hand or some other physical activity

Intellectual, or cognitive tasks, are tasks that are performed mentally, such as choosing the right type of exercises to meet the students’ needs or matching symptoms with a diagnosis

Attitudinal, or affective tasks, are tasks about the learner's attitude. Usually, affective tasks are closely connected with cognitive or psycho-motor tasks.

A thorough task analysis identifies not only the tasks that must be mastered to achieve peak performance, but also the tasks that learners are assumed to have mastered, which are called entry tasks. A thorough task analysis is often extremely detailed, literally breaking one large task into scores of sub-tasks.

Instructional analysis should also determine areas of knowledge and skills involved in achieving instructional goals. Different areas of knowledge and skills require different attention and treatment in the design of instructional activities. For example:

Concept learning requires information gathering and organization

Cognitive skills require problem solving and critical thinking

Psychomotor skills require practice and hands-on experience

Attitudinal changes require role play and situational practice

Audience analysis and prerequisites

In general, analysis should determine the learner's personal characteristics, intellectual skills, subject knowledge level, and the purpose of taking the course or subject. When designing the course or lesson, it is important to always keep in mind who the course is intended for and how the information gained in the course will be utilized.Audience analysis should also include the learner's technology skills and previous experiences with using online applications, and appropriate guidance be given, either verbally or in writing.

Furthermore, students must have a set of advanced pre-knowledge needed for the lesson to be conducted and for meaningful learning to take place.

2. Optimal performance

The lessons framework is designed with the main objectives of facilitating cognitive processes, particularly the analyzing, evaluating, and creating components of the revised taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Moving from a teacher-centered to student-centered learning environment, knowledge organization, integration and generation Infocomm Technology (ICT) tools will be used to facilitate meaningful learning through active participation, constructive, collaborative and authentic learning.

With these ICT tools to facilitate cognitive processes, the standard and variety of student-centered learning process is increased, enabling students to engage in more self-directed and self-discovery learning, at the same time, through the use of technology, participate in collaborative learning among their peers.

It is beneficial to provide adequate and appropriate ICT tools to help students engage in their meaningful learning process, with less reliance on face-to-face interaction, but more inclusive technology-based interactive lessons, such as the use of Moodle forum, online quiz, simulation applets (manipulative tool), Inspiration 7 concept mapping tool etc.

With the incorporation of ICT tools combined with normal classroom teaching, the teacher should be able to more effectively manage and control the quality of the learning process by the students through balanced information dissemination and quality instructional activities for the students. Students thus will gain greater ownership of their own learning process and thereby be able to learn more effectively and efficiently.

3. Affordance analysis

Affordance analysis is being conducted to analyze properties of items in order to figure out what these items or programs inherently facilitate, and what they do not, simply by the nature of their structure.

Below are the affordance and anti-affordance analyses done on the current tools which are used in the traditional classroom, as well as common ones found with ICT.

A. Whiteboard

Affordances:

present in all classroom

white background allows easy writing and erasing with markers

large, cheap, allows many students to write on it at the same time

allows immediate feedback by teacher and students

can be used as a projector screen to superimpose images with written words and diagrams on the whiteboard.

Some of the social issues are that not all students have a computer or internet access at home, hence provisions must be provided for this group of students to use the facilities in school.

4. Tools engaged the rationale behind the use of such tools in the design of the lessons:

Functional tool classification

Roles of tool

Principles of design and use

Information seeking tool (Internet search engines)

Cognitive level: Remembering and understanding information

Support learners as they attempt to retrieve new and existing information to support their learning process.

Having students search for new information on electrolysis will provide them with multiple perspectives via varied information seeking strategies (cognitive flexibility theory), and also support the students in monitoring their information seeking activities (metacognition theory).

Information presentation tools (PowerPoint, videos)

Cognitive level: Remembering and understanding information

To present clear and structured information to students by the teacher through PowerPoint and videos.

Support learners in documenting their findings and presentation skills.

Assist in clarifying the relationships among the information.

The teacher will make use of the PowerPoint to aid in the clear dissemination of instructions and information about electrolysis to reduce demands on working memory (cognitive lead theory).

The students can make use of PowerPoint to present their findings about electrolysis through an Internet search and share their findings with their peers.

Support learners as they attempt to establish and identify with the conceptual relationships in the lesson.

Help learners to interpret, connect and organize the represented information meaningfully and high assimilation of knowledge.

The use of the Inspiration 7 concept mapping program will allow students to be able to produce their understanding of the entire chapter on electrolysis through a concept mind. This will allow them to concretely organize and present their content knowledge in words and diagrams in the form of the concept map.

This will allow help them to simplify complex cognitive tasks into smaller understandable chucks of information (cognitive load theory).

It also facilitates self-regulated organization of the knowledge built from the lesson (metacognition theory).

Knowledge integration tools (applets, Moodle)

Cognitive level: Evaluating and creating knowledge

Support learners in the connection between new and existing knowledge.

Facilitating deeper understanding levels of content information in order to construct more meaningful knowledge.

The applets provide simulation will allow learners to manipulate and construct information using available information and data. This will help in their reinforcement process of the concepts learned.

Applets are also important as it facilitates conceptual understanding of the lessons through the mental model theory.

The Moodle learning portal allow facilitations of the forum to allow the students to integrate their knowledge gained from the lesson and help them monitor their knowledge construction process as well as their knowledge status (metacognition theory).

Help learners represent their newly generated knowledge flexibly and meaningfully.

The Moodle is a conducive platform where students are able to generate their own knowledge through collaborative learning and feedback from peers and teachers. This allows the learners to construct multiple perspectives and multi-modal knowledge from the variety of resources and inputs (cognitive flexibility theory).

Moodle also allows the learners to select varied cognitive strategies in order to gain the knowledge in the best manner (metacognition theory).

5. Suggested instructional approaches for children aged 11-12 years

Provide strong scaffolding through extensive use of visual and audio content for this group of students. Students could learn and gain knowledge through manipulatives as they learn better through such environments, which also allow higher assimilation of information. They are engaged at the lower levels of the learning domains: Cognitive (knowledge and comprehension) and affective (receiving and responding).

The main lesson objectives should enable the students to gain the required knowledge regarding cyber wellness, as well as be able to understand and identify areas of concerns.

6. Suggested instructional approaches for teens aged 13-16 years

Provide adequate visual and audio content for this group of students. They are engaged at the mid levels of the learning domains: Cognitive (application and analyzing) and affective (valuing and organizing and conceptualizing).

The main lesson objectives should centre on students’ ability to rationalize and explain the various components of cyber wellness.

7. Suggested instructional approaches for late teens aged 17-19 years

Provide visual and audio content for this group of students, with more focus on data and information analyses (such as case studies and scenario-based discussion). They are engaged at the higher levels of the learning domains: Cognitive (synthesis and evaluation) and affective (characterizing by value).

Lesson activities should illicitate open discussions and deeper analyses of information and data regarding cyber wellness, and their social effects could also be tackled.